Meanderings of the Youthful Mind

This newest collection of Amalgamations is both a melding of many of my previous works and an entirely new direction. The images retain my exploration of the feminine form, but dip back into the youthful origins of my concept of women and beauty: dolls, fairy tales, early readers, and the exotica and daring of the female performers when the circus came to town.

Like the maturation of early experiences into a fuller life view, creating these images can be a slow process of discovery. They are sometimes years in the making, trying this image with that layer, and so forth, leaving my mind open to the serendipity that can occur when suddenly the right pieces fall together into an image that seems like it was always meant to be.

These amalgamations are also an extension of my evolution from image taker to image maker. There are no longer any bad photos, merely unfinished images waiting to be manipulated or layered with another that together make a more compelling statement than either image would on their own. For this series, I often added layers of mylar to create a tension with the images of female beauty and emulate the reflective qualities of water that appear in many of my earlier works.

The process has allowed my artistry to blossom in new ways. It gives me freedom to experiment – to take what might have originally seemed a mistake and turn it into something meaningful and beautiful. Just like in life.